Skulls & Shackles

Cyrus Wolfe’s Lost Treasure

Raiders of the Fever Sea Part 5

25

JUN/17

The party decides to seek out Cyrus Wolfe’s lost treasure hoard. They follow Isabella’s tattoo map that leads them to Mancatcher Cove. as they sail toward the cove, Finrich notices a ship behind one of the small islands to the east. William used his expert sailing skills and quietly sailed up to the hiding ship. The PC’s recognized the ship. It was Isabella’s ship, the Thresher, now captained by her first mate Knuckles Grype. He PCs board the ship and defeat Knuckles. He calls for Parley and will surrender the ship and join their crew to as a loyal follower. The party decide not to kill him and take him up on the offer.

The Integrity sailed into the Indigo hued cove that was almost cave like because of the thick vines that grew across. As night fell, Galrum was ambushed by slithering vines that ripped crew mates off the deck and up onto the canopy. The Integrity was attacked by the Canopy Creeper that defended the cove. after the creeper had been dealt with, Lewis heard a thumping sound. During the commotion of the creeper attack, a patrol of sahuagin and their sharks disabled the rudder and where trying to sink the Integrity. The sahuagin where killed and driven off before they could sink it.

After a crazy night, the party was inspecting the damage of the boat and tried to fix the rudder. both attempts failed. As the first light of dawn peeked into the darkened cove from the east, the jungle cliffs come alive with patterns of shadow and light in a thousand fanciful, ever-shifting shapes. In the shadowy half light, a group of caves and crevices on the cliff face took on the appearance of a grinning skull. As the morning sun illuminates the shadow that resembles the skull’s mouth, a previously unseen glint of gold sparkles brightly in the sunlight, as if the skull has a gold tooth. They had found the entrance to the lost treasure.

The party sailed over and decided to check out both of the caves that were the “eyes” of the skull. Finrich entered the left “eye” and found a trap and disabled it. the cave was a dead end. The party entered the right “eye” where the tunnel climbed to a point just below the island’s surface. Sunlight filtered faintly through a rent in the earth above, where a gargantuan tree grew down into the rocky soil, its prodigious root system blocking any further progress ahead. The fissures and crevices in the bark of the tree’s trunk, just visible at the roof of the tunnel, vaguely resembled a wrinkled human visage with a craggy crown upon its brow, while the spread of roots below seemed like the hoary growth of an ancient beard.

Galrum started to dig. after digging 10 feet down, he hit the bedrock of the island and a layer of wood planks. Breaking away the wooden planks revealed a sinkhole descending into the rock. It dropped thirty feet to the still, dark surface of water below. The broken remnants of a wooden platform and stair clung to the wall, but the structures themselves had long since rotted away and dropped into the inscrutable depths.